Zutara Week Themes
by Togira Ikonka
Summary: Zutara Week! Katara creates a new wardrobe, Zuko learns a secret about Katara, and Aang is turned down.
1. Denim

Katara watched her chambermaid, An-gee, fling open Katara's expansive closet with her usual gusto

Katara watched her chambermaid, An-gee, fling open Katara's expansive closet with her usual gusto. Everything in there, sadly, was red. She almost never had a chance to wear any blue, only during formal occasions and when Zuko was away. He didn't want the people to think that she was more loyal to the Southern Water-Tribe than to the Fire Nation. There had been many fights on Katara's behalf concerning this subject.

She let out a frustrated huff just as An-gee turned to suggest the usual red gown for today. Seeing that her mistress was upset, she promptly shut her mouth and thought it best to let the Fire Lady vent.

Fire Lady Katara stood up and walked briskly to her ridiculously full closet. She began to rifle through the assortment of gowns as if searching for something.

"Where are my blue gowns?" She asked, sharper than usual.

An-gee, knowing that Katara's moods have been particularly crazy lately because of the on-coming baby, answered calmly. "I had them taken to the wash. They were musty smelling from being kept in the closet for so long."

The Fire Lady looked upset for a moment and then ordered in an annoyed tone for An-gee to go fetch the head seamstress.

An-gee hurried out of the room, grateful that the Fire Lady hadn't been angry at her slightly impertinent remark about her beloved gowns, and went to locate Head Seamstress Lin.

During the time of her wait Katara began thinking about the design she wanted. She obviously wanted it to be blue, but she also wanted the fabric to be light in weight and in color. Her current robes were so dark and heavy. She wanted to get rid of the tiered type shoulder pads. They made her shoulders feel so stiff and confined.

Her plans were interrupted by a rather frazzled looking Seamstress Lin, being led in by An-gee. Lin curtsied and said, "You called Milady?"

Katara took a moment to take in Lin's appearance. Her hair was up in a rather messy up do, and she had scraps of fabric poking out of the folds of her robes. Katara coughed to hide her giggle at her appearance. "Yes." She said. Trying to sound imperious. "I would like you to create me a new wardrobe." Katara launched right into her descriptions of the pieces. She wanted something formal but she also wanted some everyday robes. She told Lin her preferences in the color and design. "…And I want something new. Do you think you can come up with anything?" Katara finally stopped and glanced at Lin who was still jotting notes down at the small notebook she had pulled from the disheveled folds of her robes.

Lin glanced up and gave Katara a hesitant look. "Well my old Mistress worked on a new type of fabric…she called it denim."

"What exactly is this uh…denim?" Katara asked curiously

"Well it is a kind of rugged cotton textile. It creates more of a diagonal pattern." Lin stopped and looked to Katara to see if she understood. She did. "But because it is a relatively heavy fabric I think we would use it long delicate swirls and combine it with silk and other light fabrics." Lin fell silent and watched the Fire Lady's excited face.

"What color is denim?" She questioned eagerly

"I can make it any color, but for you it would probably make it a light blue."

"Can you bring me some samples?

"I actually have some right here." Lin reached inside her robes again and pulled out a strange looking piece of cloth. It was rough on the outside but incredibly soft and slightly fuzzy on the inside. Katara looked up at Lin's face that held a suppressed anxiousness and grinned.

"Do you think you can can have something in a week?" Katara inquired.

"Of course Milady." Lin gave a respective bow to her Fire Lady and left, designs for Katara's gowns already swirling throughout her head.

Katara gazed at the robes that Lin had displayed in front of her. They were long and flowing just like that element she controlled. They were each a unique shade of light blue, some that Katara had never seen, with denim only several shades darker. It swirled disappearing and appearing within the folds of the light fabrics.

"I love them!" She almost squealed, but she remembered her station as the Fire Lady and just barely held it in. "Help me put it on" She ordered hoping to regain some composure, as she stepped on to the raised platform before the mirror.

Lin and helper fluttered around Katara and quickly put it on her. Just as Katara turned to look at the mirror her husband, Zuko, walked into the room the words he was about to say died on his lips. He stared at his young wife in her new robes and his mouth fell open. Not because it was low cut or extremely form fitting, but it was the color that brought out her eyes and her darker skin that still seemed so foreign and exotic to him stood out against the paleness of the fabric.

He walked towards her and gently ran his fingers over the strange delicate swirls. Katara looked down at Zuko at his touch and smiled at him as he continued to skim his fingers around the new fabric.

"What is this stuff?" He asked softly.

"It's called denim" She replied softly.


	2. Static

Zutara Week

Zutara Week

Day Two: Electrifying

"Katara! When is dinner going to be ready?" Sokka yelled from the tier above Katara. She glanced up and could see his slightly red face peeking out from the ledge.

"Hold your ostrich-horses Sokka! It'll be ready in an hour!" She yelled back in a slightly aggravated tone of voice.

She then began the tedious task of measuring the rice and making sure that the Gaang had enough food to tide them over until the comet came. She happened to glance up from her measurements to see Aang walking towards her with his usual grin plastered on his face. She sighed inwardly, knowing that he was going to ask if she needed help, and although she _would_ love to have help she didn't want it from Aang.

Before their kiss in the invasion, Katara hadn't thought of Aang as anything more than as a brother. But the kiss had changed that. Now Katara saw Aang as a young man with feelings that could easily be hurt, she still thought of him as a brother but now she realized that maybe Aang didn't know that was how she saw him, and she may have given him the wrong idea. Normally she would have set Aang strait but he had been so dejected about losing that battle that she hadn't wanted to hurt him farther.

"Hey Katara! Do you need any help with dinner?"

Katara glanced back up in to Aang's grinning face and gently turned him down and in slight desperation told him that she was going to be making a more complicated dish in celebrating his success with the masters and she couldn't have any distractions or she might ruin the dinner. Aang's face fell at this, but a put on another slightly less exuberant smile and walked off in the direction of the giant Pia Sho table Haru had found the other day.

Katara went back to preparing the dinner, mentally smacking herself for promising a celebration dish. She didn't really want to cook right now anyhow; she was too worried about Zuko. After Aang and Zuko had returned from the fire bending masters she was beginning to doubt her old suspicions. If the ex-Prince had really wanted to take away Aang he could have done it then. Right?

Katara's musings were interrupted by the devil himself. Zuko walked up with his usual quiet demeanor. She tried her best to ignore him but he stopped right across from her and she was forced to acknowledge him.

"Yes Zuko?" She asked polity.

"I just wanted to know if you needed any help with _celebration_ dinner" Zuko smirked at her and began to walk away but turned by instinct when he sensed that Katara was beginning her signature move: the water whip.

Zuko whirled around in one fluid motion and grabbed Katara's hands before she had a chance to complete the move. The water fell useless back in to the now boiling pot and their faces were inches apart. Katara glared back at him with a surprising fire in her eyes. He had always thought that she was too much like a fire bender. He released her with another smirk and walked away like nothing had happened, leaving an infuriated Katara seething.

As she was loading the pot with a variety of vegetables and meat, her fingers brushed against the now hot metal. A sudden jolt of static electricity shot through her body. It traveled through the pads of her fingers to her heart, which skipped a beat. She stiffened and eventually the shock from the jolt wore off and her heart rate slowed down again. She began to mutter under her breath about particularly sparky fire benders.


	3. Smug

Zutara Week: Day Three

Zutara Week: Day Three

Smug

Katara allowed Aang to take a quick break by the fountain that they had been using for their main water source for the past two weeks. She used Aang's break as an excuse to come up with another exercise for him.

Katara and Aang had been training for the better half of the afternoon. They had gone through the warm-ups and all of the new forms that Katara thought Aang was ready to learn; but she was finding concentrating on the session hard because Zuko had been present almost the whole session.

The training had started out normal as usual, her in her under-wrappings and Aang in is Speedo type underwear, but then Zuko had come walking in with his lunch and plopped down and had been there ever since. Katara hadn't said anything and had tried her best to ignore him, but Aang had greeted him warmly and Katara had been forced to at least nod in his direction. He had only nodded back to both her and Aang, and Katara wasted no time in getting Aang focused again. She was eventually able to forget he was present because Aang obviously had not held back. But occasionally she would glance over and he seemed to be studying. He was either completely enraptured by her body (the thought of Zuko being enraptured by her made her blush) or he was studyingShe found it strange that a fire bender was studying the water bending forms. Water benders were their complete opposites. She had always thought them to prideful to even acknowledge the other bending arts. But here was Zuko, watching them, _studying_. The thought of him trying to learn _her_ bending art ticked her off slightly.

So when during the break Zuko had walked up to her to suggest a water-bending move she had, naturally, been furious. She stood there silently fuming, listening to him dither about redirecting lighting and how his Uncle had come up with the move himself. She thought that that move sounded more like a fire bending move. And she had told him exactly what she thought of him butting into her session. Loudly.

He had looked slightly shocked for a moment about her sudden outburst but them a slow smirk had come to his face, like he had figured something out that nobody else should have known. He had bowed formally and had been extremely polite in his parting, but Katara knew by his smug face that he had found her weak point. She _hated_ being taught about her art by some low life fire bender.


	4. Manipulation

Zutara Week

Zutara Week

Zutara Week

Day 4: Manipulation

Azula manipulated her element with complete, rigid control. Katara manipulated her element with a flowing grace completely alien to anything he had ever seen. Even the way the two females moved was completely opposite; Azula still in rigid control while Katara seemed to just _flow_. Every time he saw her bend he compared and contrasted their two bending styles: Yin and Yang, Fire and Water.

So when Aang invited him to a water bending lesson he was eager to observe her, and not just because she wouldn't be wearing much, other than her wrappings, but he wanted to learn more about _her_ style of bending. He wanted to break away and forget the manipulative she-devil that was his sister and he wanted to concentrate on the flowing water-goddess in front of him.


End file.
